


Shall We Dance?

by Mireille



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2019-03-17 23:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13669194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: I was asked for a ficlet: Larry/Xander, dancing at prom. A minor AU of S3. Probably not related to any of the other Larry/Xander I've written, but sure, why not.





	Shall We Dance?

"I really don't know why I'm doing this," Xander had muttered as they walked in.  
  
"Because you're a nice guy, and Anya didn't have a date," Larry had said. That was easy for Larry to say.  _He_  was here with Stacy Watson, who was nice and sane and completely human, but had a college boyfriend who was studying in Spain this semester.  _Xander_  was the one whose prom date was an ex-demon who kept talking about entrails.  
  
At least Anya had been okay with the explanation that this wasn't really a date, even if she had been  _really_  loud when she'd pointed out that  _demons_ didn't care about stupid things like gender. Xander had wound up on a mental tangent involving Anya and a female demon who looked suspiciously like Buffy when he'd realized she was waiting for a reply. "Snyder cares," he'd said glumly. Snyder had pulled him aside a few days ago, in fact, to make sure Xander knew that Sunnydale High did not approve of same-sex couples at the prom.  
  
Since Larry had already agreed to take Stacy--her mom was his mom's best friend, or something like that--Xander didn't think Snyder had anything to worry about, but he'd just shrugged and nodded and pretended to be intimidated. And then, when Anya had asked him to the prom, he'd decided that at least he and Larry would be at the prom sort-of together.  
  
That had been a stupid idea.  
  
It felt even dumber when he was out on the dance floor with Anya, trying to block out the scary visual images she was giving him by looking over at Larry, dancing with Stacy. Larry looked good in a tux, Xander thought. Not like him. He looked like a waiter. But Larry looked kind of James Bond-y, and Xander went off to a happy mental place where the two of them were super-spies, saving the world from terrorists and looking damned good doing it.  
  
"Pay attention!" Anya said. "You're stepping on my foot."  
  
"Sorry," he said. Then he looked at her, and realized that she might be an ex-demon with no idea of how to have a conversation, but she was also a girl, and her date was being a jerk to her, and she didn't deserve that. "I'm sorry," he said again.  
  
Anya smiled. "Just watch the feet," she said, and then started telling him about a guy in Budapest whose lungs had spontaneously combusted. Xander decided that if you treated her stories like she was explaining the plot of a seriously gross horror movie and didn't think about the fact that she'd come to Sunnydale to do something similar to  _him_ , they were actually kind of cool. He was even willing to say that he was having a nice time, for a not-date with an ex-demon girl he barely knew.  
  
Then somebody tapped him on the shoulder just as a slow song was starting. "Want to dance?" Larry said, and Xander looked up at him, grinning.  
  
"We can't," he said. "Snyder said--"  
  
"Snyder said we couldn't go to the prom together, and we didn't. You have your date, I have my date, we're just going to dance." He grinned back at Xander. "And if you're worried about what other people are going to say--"  
  
"No," Xander said. If he'd been worried about that, he'd have run away a while back, considering that Larry was so  _not_  in the closet that people in Oregon knew he was gay. Besides, it wasn't like he hadn't been picked on  _before_  he started dating Larry. He'd always coped before. And this way he had Larry, too, so he counted it as a plus. "I mean, no, I'm not worried," he said. "Not 'no, I don't want to dance with you.' Because--" He turned to look at Anya. "Is that okay with you?"  
  
"He's going to break your toes," she warned Larry. "And I'm going to get some punch and talk to that girl over there." She pointed to a girl in a purple dress who was standing by the punchbowl looking miserable. "I can't do anything without my powers, but perhaps she'll be comforted by the thought of her date's intestines exploding." Given the way the girl was watching one of the couples on the dance floor, Xander thought there was a chance she might be.  
  
"Thanks," he said, and grinned at Larry.  
  
Five minutes after the dance was over, Xander didn't remember the music. He didn't remember how many times he stepped on Larry's feet, or how long it took them to work out who was going to lead, or whether anybody stared at them.  
  
But he got to find out what it felt like to dance at his prom with someone he really, really liked, and that, he wasn't going to forget any time soon.

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


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